Comments on: If Your Inbox Has More Than a Screenful of Messages In It, You’re Rude

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:52:31 +0000

Love NEO – email organizing software from caelo.com. It makes the inbox-to-zero process easy as pie. Honestly. Check it out.

By: PSkov

PSkov — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:23:04 +0000

Hi All,

In this debate I was wondering if you can help with dream I have:
In Lotus Notes you can get it to ask you when you send an email whether you want it “saved” in a specific folder – or just in the “all mails folder”. This Outlook can’t.
And I would love to be able to keep all received AND sent e-mail regarding say a specific customer in one folder…

Anyone seen such an add-on ?

Peter

PS: I’m a filer…

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:06:23 +0000

Christian, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not sure I agree fully. I use NEOPro too, and although I appreciate that it allows me to see my email on a per-contact basis, it’s still valuable if not necessary to have an overview of what you have and have not yet dealt with.

By: Christian Mayaud

Christian Mayaud — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 22:56:56 +0000

I think the “Filer” “Piler” is an excellent metaphor and what the dilemma I faced with email overload … I too used all the tools you recommend including GTD but it wasn’t until I began using NEO Pro that I got a firm control over all of my emails …

The Piler vs Filer is only applicable if you are using and “individual email centric” email client (which all are except for Neo Pro) … NEO Pro (and OUtlook plugin) indexes everything so that everthing is presearched and you can now shift from individual email processing (Pile it vs File it) to a “Correspondent Centric view … in otherword I don’t look at my inbox — instead I look at my correspondents view which shows me who has a pending communication … much more natural to be talking to someone than to be processing emails … there’s nothing to pile and everything is filed for you …

very cool and I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my 1500 emails per day without it …

I don’t like leaving links on comments buyt you can easily google for NEO Pro and find it

By: Lifehacker

Lifehacker — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 05:14:29 +0000

Email filers versus pilers

Weblogger Jason Clarke rants about not getting a timely response to email. To him, the difference is between those who file their email in folders, and those who let email pile up in their inbox. It is my experience that…

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[...] n – for free. Kudos to the ClearContext team. It really excites me that I can recommend an email overload solution, and [...]

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ClearContext Corporate Weblog — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 23:40:56 +0000

Making Email Work Again – ClearContext 2005 Email Usage Survey Analysis

“I’m drowning in email.�?

By: ThePodcastNetwork :: The Gadget Show » Blog Archive » The Gadget Show podcast…featuring David Allen

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 03:10:24 +0000

[...] er app 19:55 Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In 23:40 Keeping e-mail at zero : Filers vs. Piler [...]

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 07:38:21 +0000

I found this comment in my anti-comment spam’s log file, but could not determine why it was blocked. It came from IP 24.21.203.127:
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
This is ridiculous. The author purports to know the motives and methods of a group of people that he points out to be utterly distinct from himself. We “pilers” (I prefer “searchers”) have adapted ways of ensuring that all our important emails get read, and if appropriate, responded to. The fact that the author can’t envisage how we do this doesn’t make it true that we cannot. An email’s location in the inbox relative to another folder is not its only salient attribute. Emails can be and are marked read/unread; flagged/unflagged; and can be sorted a myriad of ways besides by date.
Before calling people rude simply because they have an organizational method different from his own, I’d encourage the author to think a bit more creatively about how the “solutions” he presents can be effectively mimicked or addressed by a “piler.”

By: Sandspace

Sandspace — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:53:15 +0000

EMail notes
A couple of interesting posts about e-mail: [If Your Inbox Has More Than a Screenful of Messages In It, You’re Rude](http://www.jasonclarke.net/archives/2005/02/09/if-your-inbox-has-more-than-a-screenful-of-messages-in-it-youre-rude/) from Jason Clar…

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 00:23:18 +0000

This is bunk! All the “filers” I know use folders to respond to things at a later date. Sometimes, this can be up to a week, or never. Because they don’t check all the folders they have. If I have a full inbox, I can methodically go through each mail one by one, if only to make new email notifcations actually meaningful (I can’t spot the difference between 23 and 24 emails, but I certainly can spot the difference if I knew it was empty to begin with).

Pilers rock, as long as they aren’t deluged. Filers are people that think they’ll get back to something but never do!

By: Des

Des — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 20:31:07 +0000

Hi Jason

Nice post. I like your simple filing method, and can see a lot of merit in it if you’re using desktop search tools. I personally like Copernic, and use this extensively.

One problem I find is that my Thunderbird mail is not indexed, and neither is mail stored on IMAP servers.

At work I use Lotus Note, and that has always had a great searching tool, so that makes life easy.

Thanks

Des

By: desparoz On The Go

desparoz On The Go — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 20:26:21 +0000

Pilers vs. Filers
Marc Orchant points to an interesting post on Jason Clarke’s blog about Pilers vs Filers, entitled

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 01:51:36 +0000

I think Marc best describes my feeling on the matter – Pilers are not all necessarily rude, but in my experience those people that I have working relationships with that I tend not to be able to rely on for email communication are all pilers. I’m not saying that Bren or Cameron are rude; they have obviously figured out a system that works. My point is that many pilers are that simply because they can’t be bothered to formulate and work a system to ensure they are reliable. For me, it’s much easier to see an empty inbox and know that I’ve handled everything. For some of you productivity wizards, you may not need that, but I would venture to guess that most ‘mere mortals’ could infinitely improve their reliability with respect to email communication if they adopted some form of Filing habit.

And Ed, your point is very well taken. I’m primarily referring to email that we can assume deserves a response (that which comes from someone with whom a relationship already exists). I completely agree with your point that it is freeing to realize that not everything requires a response.

Thanks for the comments!

By: Ed Learned

Ed Learned — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 19:03:37 +0000

The one thing we disagree on here is that all emails deserve a response. I look at email and voice mail in a similar manner. If they are from someone that I have a relationship with (business, personal, etc.) they absolutly deserve a response. If they are unsolicited, they MAY get a response and they may not. One of the most freeing revelations to me was that I don’t have to respond to everything.

By: Cameron

Cameron — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 16:02:47 +0000

Define an empty inbox

Mine has thousands of emails in it but I use Outlook 2003’s flag system to allow me to deal with them: Unread emails get deleted, actioned or flagged to be actioned later. Outlook’s standard “For follow up” search folder allows me to maintain a “mini task list” which is all the current (ie today) stuff that needs dealt with. As those flagged items are actioned the flags are updated to “completed”. Any that don’t get actioned (for whatever reason), or that do get actioned but subsequently need further work scheduled, get converted into tasks and/or calendar appointments in the usual way.

I use Newsgator for my RSS feeds and hence posts get dealt with in the same way (although I use a different flag to identify important stuff I want to read separately from actions that need immediate attention).

I can triage 40 or 50 mails in moments, deleting the junk, flagging the actions etc and then as I subsequently action them, they are flagged as complete (or find their way onto my task list from whence they are scheduled and dealt with as per normal) I can find almost anything quickly using a combination of Outlook’s search/filter/sort tools and LookOut.

My inbox has thousands of items in it but I don’t think I’m rude, and like Marc Orchant I have zero items needing to be dealt with in my inbox.

So am I a Filer or a Piler?

By: Marc Orchant

Marc Orchant — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 14:32:21 +0000

Skulk back into the shadows Bren :^)

Seriously, I love the dichotomy Jason establishes in this post but I do ten to agree that all Pilers are not necessarily rude if they have a system to make e-mails that require a response or that generate a Next Action actionable. Bren has found a way to do that. Sadly, most pilers don’t.

All I can say is that there are any number of tools to help Pilers (and Filers) manage their e-mail, whether you adhere to “In to Empty” like Jason and I do or prefer to revel in an overstuffed Inbox like Bren.

MailFiler, NEO Pro, ClearContext, the GTD Add-in, and others can all help you manage Inbox issues.

All I can say Bren is that I did my Weekly Review yesterday and guess how many e-mails I have in my Inboxes (all 5 of them)? You guessed right if you said ZERO!

By: NevOn

NevOn — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 10:21:03 +0000

Handling the email guilt trip
For me, managing email is one of life’s little chores that I never seem able to really keep up with. Outlook is my email program, but what I use as an indispensable tool to really manage it all is the

By: NevOn

NevOn — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 10:19:10 +0000

By: Bren

Bren — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 01:22:58 +0000

I ran across this post right after you posted it but didn’t have a moment for a meaningful reply. I don’t now either, but I’ll just roll with it.

Mark Orchant and I have done a little battle over this in the past¹…I see you’re on the side of all that is good and light. I, however, embody the Dark Side of email non-filers.

I’m quite certain that nothing falls through the cracks with me. Folks get timely replies–generally within the hour, certainly the same day. A quick answer usually resolves most notes (and when it doesn’t, ‘Bells & Whistles’ helps thread the notes), but for bigger issues I print the email and it gets processed like any other physical bit in my inbox–never gets dropped.

And, get this, I never move stuff out of my inbox. Outlook currently has 213 emails in the inbox (they get auto-archived when they’re more than 2 weeks old) and Gmail has 1,622 in the inbox as of right now. I can sense you gagging as you read this.

Like Sérgio, earlier, my email inbox just doesn’t carry the same mental weight as my physical inbox. My email inbox is searchable–and gmail has tags. Why spend time moving stuff when doing so doesn’t make it any easier to find something? Autofiling I do…listserv stuff doesn’t clutter up my inbox, stuff from my boss goes to a dedicated folder, so I don’t miss it. But everything else? It just doesn’t bother me. In fact, empty email inboxes give me the creeps.

¹ http://tinyurl.com/56ndu